Friday Retroflective: Psych 101

Photo Credit: Morgue file by Clarita

I haven't written a Friday Retroflective in ages, largely because my attitude has been one of, Oh is it Friday? I have been, as many of you know, home schooling my son, tutoring, and writing a book. As a result, my blog now looks like my garden looks: overgrown and full of weeds. I keep meaning to come pull them and clean everything up, inject some intention in here, and I keep collapsing in exhaustion at 9 PM and slipping into bed with Half-Broke Horses. I wake up at 4:30 AM, decide whether to write for my blog or my book, get waylaid by email for half an hour and then interrupted by waking adolescents. This parenting is severely interfering with my unpaid writing career and I am considering fitting all of my kids for ball gags so I can work peacefully until 7 AM. Do you feel sorry for me? Good. I alone, among all writers, have distractions. Weep for me, readers. Weep.

Anyway, I want to do a Friday Retroflective today. Some people have put out singularly great content this week and I am going to shove all their links down their throat. If you get started now, you can get them all read by Monday and turn in a reflection on their work. Do this, and you will be a better person who can eat doughnuts without gaining weight and will definitely get a tax refund for 2012.

Psychology. It was my first major. Don't ask me how many I had. I never told anyone else about them. They all existed only in my mind. But I digress. I took Psych classes. Maybe three or four. I believe that makes me something of an expert on the subject, don't you? It seems to me that all of these posts I enjoyed are somehow explorations of the human mind. (Maybe they're not. But I think they are and today that's good enough for me.)

The Psychology of Self-Expression
This post, which I swiped from the always brilliant Jane, rocked my world this week. (Warning: if you are going to be offended by swear words, don't read this. Also, you might want to consider not reading my blog. I swear rather a lot.) It begs this question, ladies and gentlemen: if we weren't all tied in knots trying to win with everyone that doesn't matter about things that don't even matter (which we all are), then what might we be free to do?

The Father of Psychology
Tangled Lou gives us the fictionalized explanation of personality according to Freud for those of us that never understood it, or those of us that simply want to know how dear roommate Egotha might behave while trying to get something written in a house full of shouts of "Boobies!" and guilt. 

The Twisted Psychology of Economics and Social Identity
My minister, the Rev. John Cullinan writes a thoughtful piece on everything that is wrong with the national conversation about what Mitt Romney said about those 47%. This piece is about how we have taken "us" and made it "them" and challenges us to examine who exactly the poor really are. (Warning: If you are going to be offended by statistics, math and the mention of politics, you might want to consider not reading this. And you might want to consider putting a bag over your head and sitting inside humming loudly until after November 6th.)

The Psychology of Fear, Love and Truth-Telling
Jenny Lawson reminds us that sometimes being in a cage is the most freeing place of all.

That about wraps it up! I declare you all psychologists. Today, I am celebrating the equinox with my son, who has been learning about climate and seasons. Apparently, we are to pick apples at Grandpa John's, make fruit and veggie people, stomp on grapes, tell stories of the Lost Kingdom of the Fruit People (which must include Vegetable Knights) and then have everyone make up stories about the Kingdom. At 3 PM, the town has a Homecoming Parade. We are going to Ren Fair in Santa Fe Saturday. Basically, silliness abounds. I hope your weekend will be equally silly and fun.

Friday Retroflective: If You Don't Have Chickens in Your Living Room, You're Doing it Wrong

Thoughts and Images

My house smells like chickens.

It is not a good smell: one part vinegar, one part spoiled milk, one part pine shavings. I have three chicks in my living room like parakeets in a cage, nestled in an uncarpeted area right in front of my TV. They scatter pine shavings everywhere and chirp pleasantly. If I let them out onto spread out towels, they commence dive bombing one another in their contest for dominance. They are, incidentally, very hard to photograph for the novice. I can't tell where to point the camera and keep capturing empty space with a tail feather in it. There is one beautiful light brahma named Sasquatch. She belongs to my son Rowan and looks like a tiny, ridiculous eagle with lavishly feathered feet. Devin's is a demure, somewhat pitiful black australorp chick named Ninja, who is most un-Ninja-like. More of a librarian as a personality. And, finally, the photo bomber in every group shot: a chicken with no feathers on her neck, belonging to my littlest, Mikalh.

"What's wrong with that chicken?" people ask politely.

"So she will always look that way?"

The chicken is a naked neck, or turken breed. Her name is Ostrich. She likes cameras.

It is possible that I am insane. However, if you tell me that, I will become angry and huff at you about sustainability and the ability to produce our own food. Everyone, actually, should have chickens in their living room. It is you who are not doing it right. This is perfectly normal. Just ask Joel Salatin.

The truth is that all my life it has been inevitable that I would end up with chickens in my living room. It is a function of maturity. Last time, I had ducklings in the kitchen. (Don't recommend.)  At twenty, I had a rabbit that free-ranged in my house and died of eating candles and, prior, as a teenager, I had a rat palace installed in my parents' kitchen. The rats served no useful function and I tended to forget to clean their cage. These chickens are a dramatic improvement. I do learn. See?


(I promise to not post about chickens for my next three Friday Retroflectives. Sorry. Try to stop being so intolerant.)


Posts


Damn! I wrote a story about a chicken earlier this week. It was fiction, though, so it doesn't count. To make up for doing that, I wrote a ridiculously long history of my son's diagnosis with Auditory Processing Disorder and all my thoughts about that, so that later he can take it to therapy and have a really clear case for why it's damaging to have a mother who's a blogger (although my story about Rowan's ADHD is one of his favorite posts so maybe my kids like this kind of thing). After I'd done that, I attempted to write a review of The Gaean Enchantment. All in all, a full week. I have to say, though, that my favorite thing of all was the discussion in comments on my post from last week about religion. That conversation represented everything I hoped for when I began writing Team Ambiguity posts–that I could throw some thoughts out there and ask you to discuss them with me, that we could come from a myriad of perspectives but converse with respect and an interest in one another's view point. I have learned so much from the experience of that conversation that what I learned is probably a post in and of itself. What I learned first and foremost is that I absolutely love you guys.


Links


Here are some of the nuggets of platinum I found while toodling around the interwebs this week, avoiding weeding my garden and dusting my house:

The pondering of one white mother on her racial identity after having a black child: Have I Become a Whiteist? by Martha Wood of MomSoap

A concrete cake made of love lost: MacArthur Park by Julie of Feeding the Cat

On letting your kids go: Spread Your Wings by Jewels of Frazzled and Frumpy

Authoritative advice on How to tell if you are a troll by the Bloggess

A how-to on raising worms to feed your chickens. Sorry! That just slipped out.

My daddy's going to be visiting this next week so I don't know how much I'll get to post. Or how many weird typos may appear in posts I have desperately thrown up before everyone wants to go do something. Please excuse.

Friday Retroflective: What To Do When Someone Gets You Fibromyalgia

Photo Credit: Morgue File by Ray Mortim

Today, I wanted to write you a long, interesting series of thoughts on internet friendships, but I didn't because it turns out that I couldn't both clean my house and write a blog post. Did I mention how much I do not recommend fibromyalgia? In fact, if somebody ever gets you fibromyalgia for your birthday, you should patently refuse to even open it. Unless, of course, you've checked it out on Consumer Reports, and yours is the kind that you can treat by just eating healthy and taking a couple of ibuprofen. In that case, you might want to go ahead and open it, just to be nice.

But I wouldn't re-gift it unless you're intentionally trying to be an asshole. Because it may be worse for the person you re-gift it to. It may, for instance, cause them to become allergic to doing laundry. That would be OK for them if they can get their loved ones to do all the laundry, so then you might want to go ahead and re-gift it if you absolutely can't think of anything else to give them and they have everything already. But they won't like it if they're very benevolent and would feel sad to see their loved ones doing all the laundry. Or if, like me, they aren't benevolent, but they can't get their loved ones to do all the laundry and doing all the laundry themselves makes them violently ill. If that's the case, get them Mono. It's more temporary.

This post does not come with my usual thoughts, links, posts or shout-outs. Nothing but the gift-giving advice. What I really want you to do is go join the conversation here.

You can get me that for my birthday. Don't wait 'til next June. I am still accepting presents for this last birthday. By all means, though, don't get me fibromyalgia. It would be awkward both because I would know you were being a douche and because I've got some already.

I should probably stop now. I'll try to write a real Friday Retroflective next week. It'd help it you came and cleaned my house.

Friday Retroflective: Chickens are More Complicated Than You Think They Are

Thoughts and Images

This week, we got our first chicken. Henny Penny has been living for a time in my friend Katy's backyard after suffering the vicious attack of her fellow hens. When they brought her home from her coop at the stables–bloody from constant pecking and deprived of food and water–Katy and her kids nursed this hen back to health and were then stuck with her living in their small backyard. At some point, she called and asked would we like a chicken or two. Do you even have to ask?

The Saturday morning of Mikalh's birthday party we spent some time getting to know our new hen. Chickens, it turns out, are distinctly more intelligent than ducks. A low bar, yes, but one Henny Penny cleared with no difficulty. Just like she cleared the fenced enclosure we first installed her in. She flew up, snagged her talons onto the footrest provided by a dolly of Mike's and was out. We moved the dolly. She hopped the gate. We secured more chicken wire around the gate. She flew up into the rafters of my storage shed and met my dog. At this point, we decided to install a short gate across the yard separating her from the ducks. She'd be able to clear it, but they wouldn't, which should protect her from them. She found our front gate and got ready to tour the cul-de-sac. Three of us all worked double-time to prune back a rampant virginia creeper and turned on our electric fence. She was undeterred. Finally, in defeat, my husband, declared his intended absentia from the birthday party to build a proper, much taller chicken enclosure.

Now she's in.

But we are worried she will get lonely so I called Katy back to ask for another hen. At this point, worries began to surface about reuniting Henny Penny with any of the chickens who previously tried to murder her. Good point. I did a little research and it seems that, if I get her an adult hen, they will likely fight, and if I get her a younger hen, she will likely attack it. I have seen several schematics of subdivided chicken enclosures for the introduction of chickens–chicken jails. More construction. How appealing.

I think I may try a pullet. Good grief.

Posts

This week, I guest blogged over at the lovely Word Nerd's on the subject of a blog-eating cat. I finally answered my tag meme (and did it all wrong, on purpose, just like everything else I do) and I ruminated on high school for my GBE2 prompt. I am brewing a Team Ambiguity post for next week on the subject of race. If you've got a great article send it my way. I'm still looking for the perfect one.


Finds

From Maggies's Farm has the most incredible, soothing images on her blog, like grass and light and children melted into grace. All is right with the world.

Southern Fried Children is now doing sponsored posts. Here's her first:  "Monistat Anti-Chafing Gel: Not your mama's vag cream!"

I don't have enough finds this week. It would be easier to find you new stuff if all my Twitter friends weren't selling porn. I really think that's the easy way out–much lazier than writing good content to just keep talking about dildos. I try very hard to stay away from that no matter how dried up I feel for material.

In fact, you should probably start thanking me for not talking about dildos every time I post, especially if it's crap. Because that's when you know it was really tempting.

Oh, and in advance...you're welcome.

Friday Retroflective: I love summer.

Thoughts and Images

I love summer.

At the end of each school year, my youngest son is an uncooperative ball of nerves, fidgeting and flailing, a vacant, tired look in his eyes. Reports come back that he has done nothing of his school work and he arrives home at turns distant or grumpy. Then school lets out. We get one long weekend in. I introduce the notion of doing "some homeschooling" over the summer and he reacts as if I have suggested we visit the zoo. So far, we have done a research project on the habits of stink bugs and reinforced adding with dice and Unifix cubes, as well as fractions with orange wedges. He happily subtracts into the negative range with glee (his idea.) We play Mad Libs and do word games, answer the questions on Junior Trivial Pursuit. My mother is working up a Social Studies curriculum on the Revolutionary War. It is such a pleasure to sit with him for this hour a day. He tires easily of one subject, but, given the luxury of working with just one student, I can switch to another or change course. Then, when we are finished, he spends hours building Legos from little schematics, totally at peace with the world. Suddenly, he is compliant, happy, enthusiastic. Again, I say: I love summer.

Posts
I don't feel like shoving all my links down your throat for this weeks's Friday Retroflective. Did I write anything worth reading? If you haven't read the Team Ambiguity post on that Loyola study associating organic food with selfish behavior, you probably should. There's more to that than I believe we even scraped the surface on, although the discussion was quite rich. Comments are not closed. Ever.

Finds
This week, Glennon Melton of Momastery wrote a post that I want to stand on the rooftops and trumpet, positing that Jesus, who appeared once before in a pre-resurrection world as a sinner who was breaking the word of God for love, would today appear to us as a poor, black, gay teenage girl. The reaction to this statement has, of course, included hate mail, massive "unfollows" and disapproval. It is worth reading Glennon's own reasoning for why she did it. I hope that, whether or not you agree with Glennon, you, like me, admire her courage. She has a giant blog following, a book deal (and publishers were in a bidding war to get her to sign.) Hers is not in any way a political blog. She had nothing to gain from this, and everything to lose. Why she did it? She's that kind of writer and person.

My friend Jessica Banks has written a very thoughtful piece on race and racism and why it is so hard to get our hands on.

My friend Tangled Lou has written a piece on lone wolves, shooters and the lesson we keep failing to learn about caring for the ill before they harm others.

My husband posted the text to the best sermon I've ever seen him deliver on how we attribute motives to one another and how this shapes the discourse we can't really have with those with whom we don't agree.

All of these articles are written with intelligence, depth and compassion. What more could you want? I could sit around reading things like that all day because they make me a better person. Thanks to all of the writers who do it.

And I think that's enough heavy reading for your summer homeschooling curriculum, don't you? Have a great weekend!

Friday Retroflective: Defeat and Fruition

Welcome to Faith in Ambiguity's Friday Retroflective, wherein I look back at my entire week, inventory each strand of lint in my navel and then attach hypertext to all of them. This week I have not included any possums, but I have made you a scrap book of my kids, just like you always wanted. 

You're welcome.

Thoughts and Images

The U-12 boys Los Alamos Lasers went to Durango last weekend and we brought along their recently recovered center mid-fielder. They played hard. They lost. Someone, I suppose, has to place last in the gold bracket. This time it was Devin's team. In order to avoid aggravating his torn thigh muscle, Devin played goalie. Every ball that got past was a personal assault. A lot of balls got past. He played well, but was thoroughly outmatched. And so ended the season, with tears choked back and doubts rising up in his throat, the curse of his mother's sensitivity reverberating through his whole body and echoing against the wall of the minivan, answered by my own sorrow for his disappointment.

Last year a first place medal on was placed on his neck. Devin tasted, for the first time, the champagne euphoria of the athlete–the elation of a big, unexpected win. It is easy to mistake this approbation for a reason to play. And last Sunday he tasted defeat. He cried until he was done crying. Then he set the sensation of crushed hopes alongside the excitement of the year before, next to old medals, ribbons and bits of string. He wiped his tears and choked back his sobs and went to go ride a zip line with his brother.

6 year-old Mikalh, strapped onto bungees on a trampoline, touched the sky with his tiny feet. Against the backdrop of fog and rain, he looked like a baby bird just before it realizes it can fly.

14 year-old Rowan rode the zip line. For a teenager rippling with ropy muscle from neck to ankle, that feat was easy. Comforting a younger brother devastated by disappointment? That was harder.

Back at home, things in my garden are starting to resemble food. Here are little heads of lettuce starting to form, somewhat shaded by the company of their closely planted twins. 

Potentiality is exciting. Seeds are nothing more than little packages of promise. You can't help but admire their pluck. For myself, give me a plant in fruit or flower any day. I like to see what I have worked for. Here is a newly bloomed columbine, creature of the Faerie Realm, part snail and part sylph. She seems about to raise her head and speak to you.

Posts
This week began with my story of last year's Durango soccer tournament. I celebrated Mother' Day by imagining the voices of hundreds of mothers echoing off the walls of private rooms, for once getting a chance to tell their stories uninterrupted. Then it was time to stir the pot with another question for Team Ambiguity: Do Women Really Want to Suffer in Relationships? You answered, and I spent the week muddled and distracted, mulling over all that you had to say. I guess I consider that the point of being alive. Wednesday my husband kindly lent me the story of his forced servitude as a pet sitter for my Things You Should Know About Pet Ownership series. And then I wrote a bunch of stuff about wisdom teeth with deeply embedded pus and metaphors and you politely ignored me because you were raised not to talk about pus. I, on the other hand, was raised in a barn. And that was pretty much my week.

Finds
On the Ouija Nellie Vaughn of Buttons Are Not Currency has reminded me about Ouija boards. I remember all the misspent hours of my adolescence spent using them and then imagining myself showering with pernicious spirits. Or was it my imagination? Nellie has a wry touch that leaves one uncomfortably wondering, "Did she mean that? I don't believe she meant that, did she?" In other words, she is my kind of chick.

Oz Knows Poop Kelly at Diminishing Gene Pool has taken the classic topic of poop and given it a robust treatment, adding a clean spatula and a favorite pot. I am reminded of Kelly at Southern Fried Children. There may be a compilation here. Perhaps I should ask you all to send in your poop stories and we can bundle them into a Kindle single...It obviously deserves its own genre.

Pajama Pants Day I am a bit late on reading this one, but it is still a find. Here is Crack You Whip on weight gain and the appropriate attire for shopping at Wal Mart. If you haven't read Crack You Whip yet, her work is compared to things like Hyperbole & a Half or The Oatmeal. It is graphic and clever humor, the marriage of a traditional blog and a comic strip for adults.

Like Father Like Daughter Josh Weed of The Weed is an old favorite of mine, maybe the second or third blog I ever followed. He is a therapist by trade and this post features a video of his five year-old daughter, obviously preparing to fill her father's professional shoes while interviewing her own mother about childhood trauma. You actually have to watch this. You really do.

Breathings of Your Heart On a more serious note, the talented Amy Morgan of My Writing Corner has written a beautiful piece o n the writing of eulogies for one's parents and oneself.

Friday Retroflective: Gay Rights, the Mommy Wars and an Opossum Massage

Photo Credit: Morguefile by kahanaboy

It's time again for the Friday Retroflective, a long tradition at Faith in Ambiguity, which is now in its second week. This is a chance to round up all the best stuff that was thought, found and heard from you guys over the week and to shove all my links down your throats one last time before the weekend. It was, in case you don't know, a particularly great week for critical thought here at FIA.


Thoughts
When I was a student in elementary school, there was another student who let slip that her mother was a lesbian. She told one friend who told another and soon the whole class knew. That afternoon found that girl's desk an island away from the others in her cluster of four, as they pushed their desks and chairs away, telling her that her mother was a lesbian and so she was a lesbian. This condition, apparently, was catching. Whatever her family was to her, it was not going to be allowed to have the trappings of a real family–consigning her to a life of secrets and sideways explanations, a life cast with a shame.

In high school, nothing was funnier than a faggot. Although, by then, friends often tolerated actual adult gay people, the notion of gayness was still a taunt, a form of slander, the splashing of pig's blood onto a fellow teenager. This was, of course, in the liberal San Francisco Bay Area. I cannot really imagine what it was like elsewhere. Even there, it was no picnic to grow up gay. At the time, it was hard to imagine that we could come so far.

I was raised to believe that nothing is more necessary than ensuring the rights of a minority, when hate and fear threaten to take them away. I was raised not to tolerate a bully. And so I spoke out and lambasted friends with their casual homophobic slurs, until I stopped hearing them in my presence. I realize that not everyone who reads my blog will agree with me that it is a wonderful thing that Wednesday President Obama openly declared his support for gay marriage, but it is too important a thing to my heart for me to leave unsaid. I still believe nothing is more important than to stand behind those whose rights are being denied.

In elementary school, that girl was alone in her classroom. Yesterday, the president stood behind her and said that the time for hate is over. If you have not read Glennon Melton's seminal blog post on the subject, you need to. Also, this post: I'm Christian, unless you're gay and the even more moving response from a teenage boy and his mother. Comment below if you have any thoughts.


Posts 
I told the story of my first real love and a bunch of people apparently cried about it, which made me feel both honored and oddly uncomfortable. I posted a lame video of my pet duck attacking my dog and updated my blog roll, which felt better than you could imagine, as it gave me an excuse to really poke around everyone's blogs and reflect on what makes you all unique and wonderful bloggers. (If I missed you, send me an email!) Then, I gave you all capes and tights and told you we were going to re-invent thought and discourse, and, of course, you all said, "Fabulous." and showed up with the most brilliant ideas and commentary a girl could wish for. I am basically overcome with gratitude at how well this idea panned out.

If you go and read that post for the first time, what you really need to do is read the comments. That's where all the action is. Next, my mom, very sweetly guest posted the tale of how she ended up with seventeen cats for my Things You Should Know About Pet Ownership series. And I ended the week lowering the discourse with a bunch of veiled porn references in a parody blog on...blogging.


Finds
Kelly at Southern Fried Children posted this snort-coffee-out-your nose piece on possums. And then, later, I found this. Please watch the whole thing. It is hilarious beyond belief.

On a less bizarre note, another one of my favorites finds this week was Lazy W's post American Honey, which evoked a warm breeze and quiet buzzing and made me feel patriotic.


Links on the Latest Blitzkrieg in the Mommy Wars I Didn't Know Were Still On Until Last Week
Also, in case you missed them in comments, here are some other responses to Elizabeth Badinter's commentary:

Sustainable Parenting by Dr. Lee E. Skallerup

When did attachment parenting go mainstream and why was I not told? at Raising WEG

Attachment Parenting vs. Feminism at Feministe (from the perspective that most of us here did not take)

And some other fodder for thought on the topic we were hashing over this week:

Sandy D.'s book review of "Get to Work: A Manifesto for Women of the World" by Linda Hirschman, an author in the same vein as Elizabeth Badinter.

Sandy D.'s book review of Judith Warner's "Perfect Madness", another critique of modern motherhood.

My husband Mike's article A Woman's Worth, on how value is assigned (or not) along gender lines.

Happy reading. (Or if you don't want to read, you can look for this woman's other opossum videos. She has lots. Did you know they like pedicures?) Have a great weekend!

Friday Retroflective: Dust in the Wind and Corn in an Egg Tray

Honeysuckle in my yard 

I recently decided, against my ambiguous nature, that Friday on my little blog needed its own "thing." On Twitter, Friday is known for being #ff day (Friday follow)–the day on which we all declare our social media devotion for particular blogs. The problem is that I tend to forget to do this, or tend to want to suggest over and over that you follow the same cluster of favorite blogs which I pluck and savor from my Google Reader like perfect grapes, while letting everything else rot on the vine. I am also this way about books. "Have you read Vonnegut? How about now? And now?" So, Friday, like all recurring thematic events, is sort of a fail on my part. Some bloggers publish a weekly wrap-up which includes a bunch of interesting stuff that they ran across that week, stuff they posted, stuff they put in their online stores. (Ha! Stores.) This idea gives me a launching place. I am going to do a Friday retrospective of my week–a synopsis of posts, social media happenings and random amusements, but I am going to do it with "faith in ambiguity."

Welcome to my Friday Retroflective.

What I thought
This week, Tangled Lou posted something that made me stop and realize what an ass I am. This is what good friends are for, by the way. She evoked a yellow Flashdance sweatshirt and then wrote around it with words as beautifully as if it had been wrapped in silk ribbons of thought, tied up like a Maypole. At the end, I realized that my endless whining about being "too old" or "too young", crushed between the embarrassment of apparent lack of accomplishment and the ever-draining hourglass of time is nothing but a statement to the world that everything should be different than it is. Which is about as true as your average car insurance ad. This is the life I have lived and it is worthy. And...all we are is dust in the wind...

Glennon Melton reminded me about gratitude–the kind I hate, which you is shoved upon you like overcooked spinach at the side of your plate, slightly grey and flavorless–and the kind that once made me walk to the bus every day humming "Amazing Grace" as I watched a world suddenly vivid with movement and light, and the miasma of addiction lifted off the earth. She reminded me that I–and so many more of us–are miracles.

What I posted
I started the week with a love note to my middle child, who is, for the third time this year, on crutches. After that, I complained that, although I am old enough to smell forty coming, I am still mistaken for having been a teenage mother. I was planning to wrap some great animal adventures from friends into a single post, but once I got the details of the first story from Steve, I decided that this needed to be a series and started asking for guest bloggers. (By the way, the response on this has been less than overwhelming. Don't make me come to your house.)

What I found
I discovered  the talented Darlene of Adventures of a Middle Age Mom  and Gianetta Palmer of Middle-Aged Fat Woman. All this on the week I was whining about being thirty-six...Time to broaden my horizons. I happened upon a great post and discussion by our very own cdnkaro called Is Blogging Really Writing? and a very thought-provoking, jolting piece on the Christian blog A Deeper Story (Full disclosure: I am not Christian) about serving Jesus in the person of a homeless man. Powerful stuff. And now you have plenty to dick around with in all your spare time.

What I attempted 
I tried to used Pinterest. Go ahead and judge. (By the way, I notice nobody is very interested in my pins. It's been a bit like scrap-booking while muttering out loud to myself over social media.) However, while you are judging, you can always follow my childlike efforts to assemble quotes from my blog with images, using craft glue and scissors in Picasa. If you need an invitation, send me an email at tara at faithinambiguity.com, and I will send you one. Or you can remain Pinterest pure. It might be best.

My mom bought me a fabulous book on photography by the Shutter Sisters, and I attempted to use macro and a setting other than auto to photograph the seedlings I have growing in egg cartons. These ones are corn, and I like the way that they stand importantly, already impersonating a tiny cornfield, much as a toddler might dress as a policeman.

Here's my worst admission: in a weak moment, I joined a Blog Hop for mommy bloggers, which is vaguely like my having pledged to a sorority. I am hoping no one will notice that this was a completely abysmal idea. I am positioning myself as both a humorist and an armchair philosopher. Everyone else will have play-doh recipes. I will discuss, perhaps, the nature of reality. Sound like a fit to you?

Have a fabulous weekend.